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Donald Herbert Walker Trump

Way back in the olden thymes, conservatives during the Reagan years had a real fear that the Rockefeller Republicans would not only undermine the conservative agenda, but find a way to corrupt the Reagan administration. It was an unwarranted fear. Those Progressive Republicans were a dying force in politics. Reagan was a man of his age so his conservatism does not always make sense to the modern ear, but he stuck to his guns for the most part. He was a politician, so he compromised when he had to.

Then George H. W. Bush was ready to take the reigns of the movement and the party, despite being a Rockefeller Republican. Bush was a Progressive by any measure, but he supposedly got religion in the 1980’s, and to be fair, a lot of people went through that transformation. There were even old Jewish guys, who used to support communists, that were suddenly changing teams to join the new emerging majority. Bush spent a lot of time convincing the voters he was just like Reagan and they had nothing to fear.

The ’88 election was a landslide for Bush and a lot of sensible people thought that he would be the finishing touches to the new conservative majority. He would smooth out the rough patches and put a shine on other aspects to it. His famous pledge to never raise taxes was the cornerstone of his pitch. Wiser heads, the paleocons, saw what was coming, but most did not. That’s why when Bush broke his promise, a year into his presidency, his voters were crushed. Bush was a liar.

History is written by the victors and that means the Left, so we’re always told that Bush lost in ’92 because Clinton was sent by the void where God once existed, to bring joy and bliss to the blessed and smite the wicked. The truth is, Bush lost because the core of his voters rightly saw him as a liar and a fink. Many people I know, including myself, voted third party as a protest. Yeah, it meant a degenerate would win the election, but at least we knew what we were getting. Liars like Bush always find new ways to screw you.

Unless you have been in a cave, you know where this is heading. Trump won the nomination and the presidency on one core issue. He would be the President of the United Sates, not the President of the world. That was his line. He repeated it often. It allegedly captured his one core belief. What is good for America is what is good for Americans and the government should always be working to further the interest of Americans, over the interests of foreigners.

The fact that something so obvious and sane has to be explained speaks to the the degeneracy of our age. But, we live in a time when we have to debate physical reality with people who insist things like biology and math are a plot by a mystery cult of white men to keep down women and non-whites. Still, Trump running on a platform of rationality, and winning on the platform, gave a lot of people, including me, a spark of hope. Maybe what comes next does not have to be what always comes next.

Yesterday, the alt-right and even many seasoned geezers like me took a body blow when Trump abandoned everything he said over the last two years and embraced the idiocy of yet another war in the Middle East. Not only is he embracing the lunacy of the traitorous neocons, he is risking war with Russia. His “reason” for condemning himself to ruin is that his daughter got the sads over seeing pictures of dead kids in Syria. She takes to twitter over this latest agit-prop and in a day daddy is launching missiles at Assad.

The United States has no interest in Syria. There are no good guys to back. There’s no “solution” to what ails that part of the world, short of another flood. Syria is a mess because it is full of Syrians. The only sane policy is to make sure it remains full of Syrians. Let them kill each other there, not in Paris or Portland. If the Russians want to build their pipeline there and pay the price for it, good for them. If the Saudis want to stop them, best of luck with it. This is not an American problem. It is their problem. Let them own it.

This brings us back to Bush. He spent the remainder of his presidency trying to rebuild his standing with conservatives. He even scored what was pitched as a stunning victory in the First Gulf War. But, you only get one shot to piss away your integrity and Bush did not miss that opportunity. He entered the general election as a weak incumbent and Clinton used his broken pledge in commercials to remind everyone that Bush was an untrustworthy liar. Imagine that. Clinton beat Bush on the integrity issue.

It’s not too late for Trump. This may be one of those times where a President learns that his advisers are not politicians for a reason. They lack political sense. Trump does have a habit of learning quickly from his errors. That’s not the way to bet. He is now getting tongue-kissed by the Establishment. Like all men with out-sized egos, vanity is his greatest weakness. If Trump is enjoying the praise from his adoption of the “invade the world” position, imagine what happens when he accepts the “invite the world” half.

I never believed Bush the Elder about the “no new taxes” thing. Any pol who claims that is only too obviously a liar. What turned me against him was his eager jump into Kuwait to run Ol’ Sodomy Hussein out. The Kuwaitis openly bragged about their purchase of mercenaries to fight their war for them. Our guys were ordered to refrain from displaying evidence of their Christianity. Now, Trump has fallen into the same morass. But he’s pretty erratic, you know. It could have just been the one display, to let the world know that we aren’t screwing around any… Read more »

I was politically apathetic until Bush Senior decided to drag us into the First Persian Gulf war to save his rich Saudi and Kuwaiti oil buddies with the lives of our troops. But the real wake-up call was when he publicly went on air to encouraged the Iraqi resistance fighters and Kurds to rise up against Saddam, giving them the assumption that the US forces would quickly follow up and support them. They faithfully and heroically did so. He didn’t. They were all hunted down by Saddam’s elite guard and wiped out. He betrayed them, and ever since I never… Read more »

I think those that are trying to maintain their faith in MAGA are “assuming” that Trump is reacting to a 4D chess move 3 months from now. He “brilliantly” assumed by his action that: 1. He no longer looks like a Russian tool to those that will hate him irregardless of what he does. 2. Will show China that he doesn’t take crap off anyone. 3. Will install the SDF, which has been kicking ISIS’s butt, in place of Assad and control them. 4. Will sneak through domestic actions while everyone else is paying attention to Syria. I think point… Read more »

Conservative Treehouse has done some interesting work on how Trump is assembling/joining an Israel/Egypt/Jordan/Saudi coalition to remake the Middle East. Fine and dandy, but when has anything other than the point of a gun changed anything over there, and usually that sort of thing just makes things worse, because we don’t finish the job (which would entail a scorched-earth, burn-it-all-down strategy). Trump does not strike me as a guy who wants to go all the way with this, which makes it a very dangerous move. And since when has it been wise to trust anything that has something to do… Read more »

Over at http://voxday.blogspot.com/2017/04/blunder-or-complete-debacle.html I said:
I’m going with blunder as well. Though it’s quite possible that this could escalate to debacle.
Hearing all this ”but, but, it’s really a super-duper double secret twist strategy!” reminded me all too much of the 2nd Bush (mis)administration where even his (frequent) verbal gaffes ”are actually proof of his genius!”.
That said, I don’t believe the chem weapons were dropped/exploded by the Syrian military, they were either local homebrew stuff or smuggled in from a third party who’s had a long grudge against the Assads:https://www.google.com/#safe=off&q=israel+helping+isis

Here’s how I try to maintain hope: Trump’s decision was not his to make. He was simply boxed in politically. Saying “this isn’t our problem” would have been almost suicidal. It’s depressing that a president would make a decision about war based on politics rather than security, but it seems like that happened. On the “bright” side, after the smoke cleared it looks like the following happened: Trump chose the least violent action that would still look like a seriously violent response. Trump ordered the generals to give the Russian military the details of the targets and left enough time… Read more »

This Syria action sure made me sit up and take a deep breath. IMO, his strongest specific policy declaration going in to the election was that we were going to cut out all these Middle East wars. There is an argument to be made that this is really a message for Iran, or North Korea, or maybe even Russia. Perhaps even telling China, at the moment you are sitting at a nice dinner with Chairman Xi, that red lines will not be crossed. Ballsy. Trump is a betting man, so this appears to be a wager of sorts. You can… Read more »

I’m willing to cut Trump a little bit of slack in this, and give him the benefit of the doubt. The US has no interest in the outcome of Syria, but the US does have an interest in the use of chemical weapons not being ok.

The fretting over chemical weapons got us into Iraq. I’d prefer it is people did not do a lot of things, but the human condition is immutable. There are no good guys in this, just different types of bad guys. Leave them to sort out their own problems.

So Saddam killed people with chemical weapons – this is historical fact. He killed Iranians during the Iran-Iraq war – and he gassed a town of rebels if my memory serves me correctly. Then – the Neocons – because they were looking for an excuse to invade Iraq (they had already stated their intention to do so) – needed a reason. So they went full bore on the “Saddam has WMD’s!!!” theme until it stuck. Similar to how the left has gone all in and doubled down on the “Russia did it!!” theme lately. I’ll say the same thing about… Read more »

Best analysis I’ve read so far: “Actually, the Syrian base was not destroyed … the lack of damage is so obvious. That’s what you do when you get fake intel on a poison gas attack, you fake a retaliatory attack. Smoke and mirrors, kids! Trump is doing multivariable calculus while the rest of you people are still trying to figure out how to do addition with those fat pencils in your stubby little fingers.” Fits; those missiles are old, slow and ineffective against real, protected targets. Had a buddy who, when in Nam. used to shoot off dozens boxes of… Read more »

“Trump won the nomination and the presidency on one core issue. He would be the President of the United Sates, not the President of the world.” Trump ran on the wall; its true that the wall is basically shorthand for what you are saying here but specifically he ran on the wall. I think that regardless of all the tempest on Twitter, Trump as a successful president lives or dies on the wall, not on whether he bombs Syria or Korea or wherever. “Yesterday, the alt-right and even many seasoned geezers like me took a body blow when Trump abandoned… Read more »

“Trump won the nomination and the presidency on one core issue. He would be the President of the United Sates, not the President of the world.” Trump ran on the wall; its true that the wall is basically shorthand for what you are saying here but specifically he ran on the wall. I think that regardless of all the tempest on Twitter, Trump as a successful president lives or dies on the wall, not on whether he bombs Syria or Korea or wherever. “Yesterday, the alt-right and even many seasoned geezers like me took a body blow when Trump abandoned… Read more »

Maybe. Time will tell on all of it, but an important chunk of his base is thinking Trump is a fink and a liar right now. My guess is all the same arguments in favor of voting for Bush will be re-purposed for voting Trump in 2020.

As an aside, I think this is playing well with the public. The Drudge poll has it at 65% in favor. Few people I know are opposed, even the liberals. The point being, I’m in a very small minority and I know it.

“Time will tell on all of it, but an important chunk of his base is thinking Trump is a fink and a liar right now.” Maybe I’m just cynical or old or I’ve been living in NYC too long but I didn’t have any major expectation of Trump on the level that he’d be honest or he’d roll back the state to 1922. I had one major expectation of him in the voting booth – he wasn’t Hillary Clinton. On that level he’s already succeeded. “As an aside, I think this is playing well with the public. The Drudge poll… Read more »

I’m already seeing stories come out about how the gas was likely already at the location – and what really happened was that the Syrian military bombed the location because it was a known ‘rebel’ location – and that is what released the gas. I’m also seeing stories that it was phosgene – and not Sarin. Given the amount of lying that has gone on around the Syrian conflict for YEARS now – and , including all the outright lying and fake news around the US presidential election cycle – what are the chances that we’re suddenly hearing the truth?… Read more »

You (and I) may be a fairly small minority on this, but it’s a minority he needs to win re-election in 2020. He tossed it away, and for what? Nothing of any value that I can see. Now he just looks impulsive, since no effort was made at all to see who really conducted the gas attack. I think Presidents live in a bubble, but they still have to have some sense of what their supporters are thinking, and I believe he just fucked up on that point. We’ll see if he recovers. I suppose the good news is that… Read more »

“I think in the end Trump as President lives or dies on overturning the “Invite the World” part of “Invade the World, Invite the World” slogan.” What hope is there of that, if all it takes to make his knees buckle is a photo of a pathetic kid? All it took was one picture of a drowned kid to fling open the doors of Canada to a still-continuing wave of “Syrian refugees”. What worked so brilliantly once will assuredly be used again. And again. Even if they’re not dead, there will be pictures of sobbing women and children pressed pleadingly… Read more »

You’d think someone who grew up in NYC would be wise to the street hustler gig. I think he got played big time by the Deep State and the media. Photos and video looked so bogus, it was laughable. Guys carrying kids in their arms running around like chickens with their heads cut off! Too much. Anyone who has watched over the years how the ME people play the western media see all the hallmarks of a scam. Unless Trump had other motives, which I think are still weak for this kind of action, this was a don’t care in… Read more »

I was not happy about this last night at all. Too many unknowables, and if you had to strike somewhere to show you are not to be messed with and check off some other good negotiating and meme killing boxes, this might have been it. I am hoping that in time, this will be seen for what it was, but by the time it is, the muh Russia meme is deader than dead. Trump is in a good position to say, ” it appears the press made up those pictures to lie to me and shape public opinion!” I believed… Read more »

“Trump is in a good position to say, ” it appears the press made up those pictures to lie to me and shape public opinion!” I believed those horrible pictures and Lindsey and McCain were telling me we had to bomb. I won’t make that mistake again!” Trump has gotten a lot of excuses from his base supporters because of the supposed “intelligence” he accumulates on his own. For instance, claiming he was spied upon, had the media scream he was a liar and conspiracy theorist, then showing that his intelligence was correct. So, if he is deceived by the… Read more »

Well, I hope you are right. Trump does like winning and he likes making lists. Just think of the 100 day Accomplishment list he will proudly report on soon.

The only caveat I have to calm my nerves is that this happened so quickly, it almost has to be a play for other purposes and not a real change of direction according to his campaign promises. I hope and pray.

As a believer in most everything former CIA agent Michael Scheuer has to say about the Middle East and its surroundings, I like Z Man and many of the posters here am less than enthused by Trump’s decision last night. But, I don’t think it’s time to compare him to GHWB. Trump exists in a political swamp and he’s got to “give one” to “get one” at this time. He is surrounded by so much fecal matter from the previous three (maybe four) administrations that he can’t have everything his way. It’s like everyone here is expecting him to be… Read more »

The Trump Administration is on the precipice. The only reason I’m not more disheartened today is that this seems to have been Kabuki Theatre and a one-off. Obviously if we send troops to Syria I’m off the Trump Train as are millions of others.

If we don’t build the Wall and halt refugees, I’ll gleefully help derail the Trump Train–as will millions of others.

My greatest concern is that Bannon is near to walking out the door while Kushner is the Donald’s favorite, which makes it harder for me to pull the wool over my own eyes about Syria or attempting to rescue Obamacare. When his approval number fell to 36% that wasn’t more Democrats hating him, that was a pure loss of love, Donald.

I think more than anything this is a one-off message to Russia and China.
– Dropping cruise missiles in Russia’s new playground.
– It is no coincidence that it happened while he was at dinner with Xi.
– And then a little stab at the media trying to make their Russian collusion case.
– Finally, Hillary’s speech supporting the action before it happened was icing on the cake.

I don’t think he has significant intention of getting deeply involved in Syria. At least I hope not…

WW I kicked off slowly after an assassination in Sarajevo too.
The point is “Why” did it happen? When it very well could be another False Flag ?
Trump would restore more Freedom, and to start to deconstruct this USSA by ordering a missile attack on a certain facility in Langley, Va.

I agree with your assessment of HW. What a rat fink. I really don’t know what to think of the Syria mess. I give it better than even odds that AQ or ISIS staged to attack to provoke just such a response from the U.S. I wonder if the Administration knows it was probably a staged attack but decided to launch a few missiles at worthless targets to: 1. See how they do against the air defense systems the Russians sold them. 2. Get everyone off their backs about the Russians and Assad. 3. Maybe prolong the civil war as… Read more »

A few years ago, this horse-shit with bombing Syria would have royally pissed me off. Especially with the America first stuff that I let myself believe Trump really meant. And not to mention the very f-ing real possibility of this mess culminating in a nuclear war. But now…. Don’t care. If WWIII happens and the kids start getting pulled back on the ICBM silos, all of those ass clowns in Dee-Cee and NYC who just have to have their war… They die first. Maybe I get vaporized in round 2 or starve to death in a radioactive wasteland, but they… Read more »

Finding good, original entertainment is going to get a lot harder now. For example: we’ going to see chemical weapons used in every middle east shit-hole now that the narative of chemical weapons use = ‘ Murica, fuck-yeah!, get ready for the chemical weapon use of the week theater.

Since you brought up olden Thymes and the word “fink” (which I haven’t since I was about 7 years old), I would like to continue the theme of bygone era values. There was a time when a man like George H. W. Bush would have been shunned into hermitage after committing a bald-faced lie in public like he did. And if he truly was a man of honor, he would have retreated into penance and taken his lumps like a man. He did neither, and that is his lasting legacy. He was succeeded by Bill Clinton; who was a true,… Read more »

My opinion on ’92 was had it been a straight-up Bush v. Clinton matchup, Clinton still would have won and by roughly the same margin as he did. Perot quitting when he did made him a protest vote, nothing more. Bush had a lot of things going against him; ”no new taxes”, of course, the Gulf War that many thought was ”quit too soon, left business unfinished” the fallout from the S&L crisis (bubble) that left the end of his Presidency in the same shambles as his son’s, and his fatigue and indifference in campaigning against an opponent who wasn’t… Read more »

We’ll never know about a straight-up Bush v. Clinton matchup, will we? When Perot dropped out in July, he led in 3 way matches with Bush and Clinton. Dropping out assured no damage would come to the Republicrat and the Demopublican parties. When he re-entered the race in October, he was still able to receive over 18% of the popular vote. Clinton beat Bush in the popular vote by about 43 to 38%. Exit polls have been produced that showed Perot drew equally from Bush (37%) and Clinton (37%) , but that still doesn’t account for 26% of the vote… Read more »

I like old words. I take credit for bringing back the word “mohammedan” which I started using in comments to news stories about five years ago or more. I’ll also take credit for bringing back the word “honky.”

I’ve enjoyed using the word ‘honky’ since I was in Jr High, & I really appreciate your pulling ‘mohammedan’ back into use.

But I also wonder if the “missiles as a chemical weapons use response” calculus isn’t actually designed to keep the BS ‘over there’…to force the bad guys to kill each other on their own turf & on mutually agreed upon terms.

As someone who has had responsibility for troop training for WMD defense during the Cold War (and hence some, thankfully theoretical, knowledge of the subject). this attack has a number of false flag indicators. None of these indicators is dispositive but they are also consistent with ISIS being behind a WMD attack on one single village, either genuine or simulated. Evidence: – Some of the symptoms demonstrated on camera by the apparently tragically dying casualties are entirely consistent with the claimed Nerve Agent GB (aka Sarin) but are all voluntary nerve controlled (twitching & lolling head). GB is not a… Read more »

And maybe, just maybe, Trump could be so stupid as to believe a false flag operation. I thought he was the greatest genius in the history of time at acquiring his own intelligence? Like I said, let’s see if his ego can admit to being scammed.

You “always” have to consider the source of the information, including things like the photos and videos. And don’t forget that many of his Intel people are still actively working against him. More reasons why I would not have taken action in this particular case but waited for a more significant opportunity to use my “silver” bullets.

Drake;
Agree: Spraying down purported casualties with water is actually useful in a Cl attack scenario. Or they were making Cl there and their process control went wrong. And it also is consistent with a gas attack simulation that got a little out of hand: Also consistent with a genuine, run-of-the-mill Syrian atrocity, that might opportunistically be hyped up to world-class by claiming it was done by nerve agent.

‘NOTHING in the ME is as it appears in the Western media’ is the good rule to follow.

You called it Al. Purposeful fraud is my leading supposition. They are very bad actors at putting these events together and the media (western) are too stupid to notice or pick up on the inconsistencies.

Due to a decade plus of neocon lies and wars, my desire to entertain additional bad advice/disinformation hovered around zero at the time IS/ISIS was being marketed as the new Hitler by the MSM. It was everywhere….Christians were trapped on mountains facing slaughter…they were going to take over the entire region. There was even one very odd Friday press conference in DC where an official claimed that 9/11 scale attacks were imminent in the US as ISIS militants had crossed the border from Mexico. It was never mentioned again. Then John McCain went to Syria to meet with “moderate rebels/freedom… Read more »

President Trump lost something with me last night. A good way to regain that lost trust would be to drain the swamp of family member “advisors” in high places within the White House. I didn’t vote for Ivanka, her husband or any other member of the Trump family to run this country for 4 years. Otherwise, perhaps the “Art of the Deal” Trump has been schooled by the RINO’s on how it works in politics. John McLame and the Warlocks may have told him he needed to do this in order to get their support for domestic things he wants… Read more »

Ivanka was supposed to run the Trump Company, and her husband is now some expert on All Worldly Affairs from a resume of what? NYC Democrat Jew?
Then just invite Chucky Scummer into the WH to help Trump. I would say LOL but at this rate Hilarity may get a job in the Trump Administration in 2 years.
Today’s Conservative-Libertarian-America Firsters have now adopted the 60’s Anti-War/Anti-Feral Gov. policy, while the 60’s Hippies somehow became ProgreSSive NWO & NeoCon Warmongers and Domestic Tyrants.
YinYang, Peace is Out Foreign and Domestic, CYA

Come on! We just get rid of Obozo, Jarrett, Moochell, Lynch, well, the worst fucking bunch of socialist moosy loving assbites in American history and you’re really complaining about Trump’s family support? Really?? Does it bother you that Hillary is coming out of the woods again just when Obama and the rest of his crew are lawyering up and hiding out hoping that world events will make everyone forget them? Don’t forget the Fed Budget runs out in just a few days! That should keep things frosty for awhile. Too many other things to list and you are worried about… Read more »

To add another voice to the chorus, I’ll trade a Middle Eastern folly for an end to birthright citizenship, call it the metaphorical wall, if you will. A failure on both invade and invite will lead to a dangerously large piece of America’s core withdrawing from any sense of civic duty. This mule will stop dead in its tracks and drop its load. I’ll owe nothing to nobody, it will be just me and mine. Was that the proposition they had in mind for the nation?

I don’t know how all this will turn out but DJT doing the opposite of BHO seems ok. And I’m enjoying the liberal media trying spin something they wanted and got into something bad. That’s pretty funny.

I expected a barrage of 59 Tomahawks at $1.59 million a piece to do a lot more damage on the ground, not just char a bit of desert, the attack cost the Defense Department $93,810,000 which seems like a rather bad return on investment to me, good enough for a stunt tho, it would also explain why “the US gave advance warning of the missile strike to Russia, which gave the Syrian military some time to move most of its assets to another base.” the Pentagon has confirmed.

It’s all turned to custard. And it all seems to be of Trump’s doing rather than anybody conspiring to bring him down. I hate that his daughter and her reptile husband are all up in this. This Syria nonsense on what will turn out to be a propaganda video.

I really thought a man like DJT who battled through so much adversity to get to win the election would genuinely deliver to his supporters.

This was over at Free North Carolina today: -Channeling my inner Major Gen Smedly Butler, USMC and Medal of Honor recipient “war is a racket.” The long-running Syrian “civil war” and today’s Cruise Missile strike by the US is a classic case of “who benefits?” “They*” (I’ll explain further along who “they” are) have been itching for an excuse, any excuse for years now. Here is the latest of several attempts at justifying the removal of Assad in Syria. The excuse. – Assad’s AF bombs an ISIS weapons depot. – ISIS chemical weapons are released, killing civilians. – Assad is… Read more »

I posted this on CTH and got some massive blowback. Now Sundance is twisting himself into pretzels trying as hard as he can to justify this crap. And his legion of “Born-Agains” are buying every jot and tittle of this shit sandwich. Just two days ago he was warning *NOT* to get involved. Now, a quick about-face to “Trump Can Do No Wrong!!!” bullshit. So here’s my post: ***** Trump has succumbed to the siren cry of the RINOs, Neo-Cons and Globalists on this one. We have absolutely NO business getting involved in ANY ME conflict, unless there is a… Read more »

MAGA? Looks like MABA to me, (Make America Belligerent Again) You can’t take back a boolit, anymore than you can take back cruise missiles. The question for me is are we seeing a Trump carefully hid from us or are we seeing the Neo-cons in control of foreign intanglements? Either of which is not good. Either of which I seriously doubt many of us voted for. No matter what anyone says, us dirt people, the crux of us Men of The West, have an absolute and ultimate stake in what these actors are doing, but even more important is we… Read more »

In words that are not adequate to the task, I’m just about had a craw full of being forgotten, and it is not just myself I’m speaking of. This entire republic, regardless of it’s warts and troubles, is predicated on the simplest of concepts, Will of The Governed. It’s health as a functioning rational system of government is entirely dependent upon that idea and single overriding principle. What is so incredibly difficult about that truth and what it entails. It certainly is easy for the sonofabitches to act in the name of the will of the influential, the will of… Read more »

It is impossible for a US President to avoid making some warlike gestures in the Middle East. The question is, how hard and with how many appendages will Trump grab that Tar Baby.

He ran on domestic issues; let’s see what he does with those before bailing.

I’m not giving up on Trump until I see a realistic alternative to him that I like better. By that I mean, a live human who can win an election as opposed to a walking laundry list of slogans and theoretical ideals.

Possibly Doug. While I was rather shocked when I heard the news, I do know this much. Pres. Trump is a different animal cut out of a different cloth than other politicians. Because he is a first of sorts, a businessman primarily, I am hoping he has a bigger game at play here than our typical ass-wipe politicians who really are one-trick ponies. I think Fuel Filter is spot on. Too much that doesn’t fit. And Trump is not a fool although many like to think him one. No, I have to believe he has other motives at play. Speaking… Read more »

I agree with everyones point of view, it’s all good, and it’s seriously engaged, your’s to LP. I just have this gut feeling something doesn’t add up. I’m trying to zero in on it, but man, there are so many variables and unknowns, unknown unknowns also. As Patrick Henry said, I smell a Rat. Lord knows there’s enough Rat’s involved. Not for nothing, Trump, he nuked realpolitik in his election bid. The guy gas lighted a global 5th column media complex, he motivated the dirt people like ain’t been seen since RR won. Pardon my french, but WTF! is going… Read more »

Or it is a statement to Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea, but done so in a way that lets them know the score without their losing face? It is the same idea as finding your spot in middle school not by beating up the toughest kid on the playground, and then risk getting jumped by his buddies soon after. Instead, you observe who is a hanger-on to the tough guys (who they don’t really care about), and beating the poor sap to a pulp. Message sent, high place in the pecking order earned, and no one loses face or… Read more »

“It is impossible for a US President to avoid making some warlike gestures in the Middle East.”

Not when there is still oil and gas left in the ground, at any rate. But a president with cojones could avoid it. Trump just demonstrated he’s as easy to scam as a girl in high school. Quite an accomplishment.

Obama used Bush’s 9/11 congressional use of force agreement as a blank check for a lot of little wars to reshape the Middle East. Baller move for the Nobel Peace Prize president. He tried to escalate to a war in Syria and the US citizens, Left, Right and middle, stood up and screamed NO! Syria was perceived as one step too far and the war weary US citizens clearly were not going to allow it. There was no public support for a suicidal war in Syria that would draw in the Russians. That lunacy was stopped dead in its tracks… Read more »

Trump said repeatedly during the campaign that he would destroy ISIS. He said it again after the election and again after he was inaugurated. These are not the words of someone intent on avoiding the morass of the ME. I never thought he had any plan to do this, and still don’t. He was giving voice to something we all wish for, the destruction of evil. Whoever was behind the chemical attack in Syria, it was pure evil. Trump saw an opportunity to strike at it and did. He is unpredictable and he has balls, which I like. There are… Read more »

You got a point there Rod. I noticed similar things. Something is not right about the visuals and the way it was orchastrated. It’s almost like all those platforms that launched CM’s where pre-positioned. Not for nothing that was some unusually quick targeting and the cross border authority required to fire missiles across a sovereign border was already in place. Maybe we got it all wrong, maybe it is an ingenious false flag of an entirely different color? What if that airbase was chosen as a decoy because it is basically unused by Assad? What if it is a co-ordinated… Read more »

I have high hopes that Trump has read and accepted Derbyshire’s thoughts on boots on the ground war in the mid-East (bad) as opposed to gunboat diplomacy with Mid-East powers. (good) “We’ll ignore you until you seriously annoy us and then we’ll blow up some stuff and kill a bunch of you at no risk to ourselves, and we’ll do it often. We consider looking oddly at one of our people to be seriously annoying. We consider killing one of us or stealing our stuff to be vastly annoying, repayable at the rate of 100,000 to one. Do you like… Read more »

I share your concerns and think this was a mistake; that said, I think this smacks less of revanchist neo-con reassertion of power and more of “Scowcroftian” realpolitik. More GHB than GWB. “And though Russia was the big power most directly challenged by the strike, Putin was perhaps not even the primary intended recipient of the message.” – Walter Russell Mead My thoughts, too. a well-planned, calibrated demonstration of US willingness to pursue military options. Rather than this being an impulsive act, I think Mattis, viewing Obama’s strategic retreat, as a threat to US security, has likely been looking for… Read more »

What happens when there’s another gas attack, whether by Assad’s forces or anti-Assad rebels? We have to grow a spine and stop knee-jerk reactions whenever Muslims resume killing & gassing & torturing & beheading each other. We should encourage it. When there’s another attack either Trump sends in more missiles and inches closer to a quagmire, or he hangs back & is labelled the new Soetoro, weak & vacillating.

pretty naive look at things, both in the post and the comments. everything is about trump and what he said or did not say during the election cycle. now, i am not a native english speaker but from what i can see on tv and newspapers it is pretty obvious who trumps administration holds responsible for this attack – hesbollah and iran. also from the russian and syrian response it is clear (at least to me) that they understood the message. also, general statements on the campaign trail should not be taken literally. trump has adopted james mattis strategy, there… Read more »

Although, that said, the deranged Dems probably think Trump & Putin colluded and set this up so Trump could do a quick hit, distinguish himself from the ever-vacillating & speechifying non-entity Obama, plus appearing to provoke Putin, over which they cackle in a late night phone call. LOL It’s so excellent how the Democrats have become a deep-satire buffoonish caricature of a political party. The media meanwhile has irretrievably discredited itself. By this view there won’t be a repeat gas attack b/c this served its purpose. Sometimes it does seem like so much that happens in the Middle East occurs… Read more »

Did ya’ll expect that you’d love every last thing he does/ did? He can’t ignore the wheels turning in rest of the world, thats a big part of the job. Still, he needs to make sure his actions in that sphere are for the good of the American people and not decided by or for the exculsive good of the global cloud neo con people. On balance this Syrian intervention has more benefits than costs for him. Punishing the out of bounds actions in a limited and measured way helps make other prolems less difficult. PS Reagan wasn’t perfect, just… Read more »

I doubt very much that Trump will not do it again. He’s receiving all that positive reinforcement, and he may be vain enough to believe that he can win over the neocons and “progressives”, too, which would make his life much more pleasant. There are more than 45 months remaining in what is almost certain to be his only term. That’s too much time for a blustering guy like Trump not to play Risk with the military, and we can only guess at the scandals that will erupt or be manufactured by the left. The scandals will require diversions, as… Read more »

Given Trump’s uncanny knack of having the right answer, I find it curious that he went through this exercise, which was so devoid of substance. I wonder if it was either meant to blow the Russia stuff away or to send China and North Korea a message. I haven’t given up hope yet, but I wasn’t thrilled by what happened.

the problem in Syria and the rest of the middle eastern muslim countries is that there is no good guy. if assad did in fact gas his own citizens, do you think the rebels would do anything different? deposing assad is not going to improve life for Syrian citizens. we deposed two horrible governments in Afghanistan and Iraq. what good did it do, the people want those horrible governments back. we need to remove our military from the middle east, let them work it out for themselves. we have lost enough American lives and money trying to win the “hearts… Read more »

I notice a lot of people hoping we don’t get “more involved” in Syria. Now I have no idea what Trump is doing. I feel a little better since I found out that the strike was much ado about nothing but…the US has a base IN Syria. The US has a base with artillery and Stryker fighting vehicles. Stryker’s are not know for their impenetrable armor but for speed. Much better for attack. If the base was for defense you would expect a slower more armored vehicle. Why do we have a base in Syria? Couldn’t we defend from a… Read more »

Hope you were wearing a parachute when you made that gigantic leap. DT did not “enter ” another ME war. He sent a msg that America was back and that there will be a bitch of a payback if you try to play Hitler lite by gassing civilians. That’s all.